Community Comes Together for Campus Clean-Up

August 16, 2010

On Saturday August 7th, seminarians, children, spouses, faculty and staff worked together on a campus clean up. The clean-up part of a very hot day began at 9 a.m. outside the North Dorm where a crowd gathered to collect tools and receive instructions.

The first task was laying new mulch in the playground. Everyone was involved. Some hauled mulch in wheelbarrows. Children used their wagons. Others attacked “mulch mountains” with rakes and hoes. David Wagschal, who is joining the seminary faculty to teach Church History, showed his skills on the SVOTS tractor.

While most were working in the playground, Fr. Chad Hatfield, our Chancellor and a keen gardener, was working to tidy the flowerbeds and trees in the front of the Rangos Building. Once the playground flooring was in place, the crew moved on to tidy the shoreline alongside the Lakeside married-student apartments, collecting bags full of debris.

Some enthusiastic seminarians took garbage bags down to the base of the waterfall and collected the litter that had swept down from Central Ave. through Crestwood Lake. Our Dean, Fr. John Behr, and his family collected glass, bottles, and assorted other refuse from the Seminary’s border with Scarsdale Road.

Many filled refuse bags and blistered hands later, the community happily ate vegetarian pizza together on the veranda of the Germack Building.

“I was really impressed by the commitment to the Seminary that the community showed today,” said Fr. Chad. “Just about everyone on campus showed up cheerfully and worked extremely hard.”